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wefalck
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Everything posted by wefalck
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There are many different ways of attaching a sail to the mast. Dutch ships often used a continuous rope running through eyelets in the sail and then around the mast. This is a rather old-fashioned method actually. In order to make the sail run down the mast more easily when lowering the gaff, wooden 'pearls' or klotjes were added. -
In the monograph on boeiers cited above, there is a cross-section of DE SPERWER which shows the massive floor-timbers, but only some pretty thin planks underneath. This together with KORTES's drawing made me conclude that the boat is built on a horizontal plank, rather a vertical keel. As a matter of fact, there are many transitional designs, not only in Dutch boats, between bottom-planks and keels. Bottom-planks tend to be the older tradition that often slowly changes into the now quite ubiquitous keel, but not everywhere, of course. The tapering is presumably due to the fact, that they want a pretty wide portective plank in the middle, but then have to somehow lead this into the stem- and stern-post.
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Very nice woodwork ! Just a little point: DE SPERWER, like many of these boats was not constructed on a keel, but on a fairly wide and thick bottom plank, hence such boats were called platbodems in Dutch. If you check on the drawing in your first post, you will see, that what appears as a keel really is only a thin plank that is nailed to the bottom for protection. Perhaps you should take away a few milimetres from your 'keel'. There are other boeiers, however, that were built on a keel. The platbodems were mainly built for tidal waters, where they could then easily sit on the mud at low water, while a boat with a keel sails better, but leans over, when on the mud.
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Best finish for wood ships
wefalck replied to Dave3092's topic in Painting, finishing and weathering products and techniques
There is no 'best' - it depends on what kind of look you try to achieve. Unpainted wood on working sailing ships was either treated with Stockholm tar or linesee oil, or some concoction that contains either or, or both of these. The surface will have a light sheen or be matt, depending on age and exposure of the treatment. From the late 19th century on yachts (and some high-grade passenger ships) would have unpainted wood varnished. Surfaces would range from satin to high gloss. The varnish would form an appreciable layer on top of the wood, unlike the Stockholm tar or lineseed oil that would soak in. Many models prefer (it also seem to be a sort of convention for 'historical' models) an 'artisanal' look to their models, highlighting their woodworking etc. skills, rather than representing the actual look of the ship. For this any kind of surface treatment that is used in fine joinery can be used. For the latter kind, my preferred method is to apply nitrocellulose-based wood-filler and rub this down with very fine (0000) steel-wool. This give a satin finish that deepens the wood colour without forming an appreciable layer on it. For small parts or carvings, one may prefer (diluted) shellac without filler, so that it doesn't clog up the details. Be sure to blow off any slivers of the steel-wool or otherwise you may get rust stains some time later. -
Ah, then you meant southeast not southwest ... well it is relative, we were looking from the Netherlands.
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Normally it is not so good to show (modern) models to illustrate matters, as one never knows, where the modeller got his wisdom from, but all the pictures I have of mast tabernacles a cluttered with ropes and other stuff, so here is picture of my Zuiderzee-botter model in 1:90 scale: Here the mast tilts forward, so one didn't need to cut out the 'coffin' in the forward cabin. P.S. perhaps one should rather ask ?dondé? 1500 km (as the crow flies) from Enkhuizen gets you to somewhere in the middle of Spain or so ... didn't realise this before, but the morion in his avatar also suggests that region ...
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15' Dinghy by Bedford - FINISHED - 1:1 scale
wefalck replied to Bedford's topic in Non-ship/categorised builds
Clever and beautiful solution ! I think in the old days they just nailed a couple of pieces of sheet-metal on each side. -
Most, if not all Dutch traditional sailing-boats had their mast installed in a ‘tabernacle’, that is a sturdy two- or three-sided frame. The mast rests in a spur and is locked in place with a latch. To lower the mast, one opens the latch, lifts up the mast a bit and then lowers it. In other, more modern arrangements the mast pivots around a bolt in the top of the tabernacle and is locked in place with another bolt at the foot. For this reason the boats had a minimum of standing rigging that also could be easily unhooked. This arrangement was needed because of the many low bridges along the waterways. Some could be raised, but they charged a fee for this.
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Good to know that van Konijnenburg's are on archive.org. I have vols. II and III as originals, but was missing vol. I.
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Thanks. At some stage I also plan to build a boeier or a tjotter, but not a 'modern' yacht, rather a mid-19th century one ... so I collected material while I was in the area. Incidentally, the Dutch national archives and some museums have a lot of plans for downloading.
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I tried to use paper - because it so easy to work with and doesn't make a lot of dust - for a steel-ship, but even when soaking it in woodprimer, I found that the crisp edges needed were not possible with this material. However, I think for 'old-time' wooden ships it is a very suitable material, if one does not work in too small scales.
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Paper is a very versatile building material - when you get away from the classical cut-out paper modelling. Your model is quite a tour de force, showing what can be done ! We had seen this already in your article in our journal LOGBUCH 👍
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Didn't see the building-log until now - excellent progress and excellent work ! DE SPERWER is preserved in the Zuiderzeemuseum in Enkhuizen/NL. Here you can check out various detail pictures that I took of her, when I lived in the area for a some years: https://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/maritime/zuiderzee/zuiderzee.html She has an interesting history. She was built as yacht from the beginning, while boeiers were sort of representative boats for well-to-do people in a country when there were not many roads and no motor-cars. Kind of Dutch Mercedes of the 19th century. They were also used as kind of long-distance taxis or inspection boats. DE SPERWER was owned by a certain Merlin Minshall, an adventurer, who worked for British intelligence during WWII, where he met Ian Fleming, who partially modelled 'James Bond' after him. There is a monograph on the boeiers, albeit in the Dutch language: VERMEER, J. (2004): De Boeier.- 528 p., Alkmaar (De Alk & Heijnen Watersport). BTW, what part of the World are you from ? I seem to see some kind of Dutch/Belgian/Northern French houses through the window in one of your pictures ...
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Yes, that PROXXON is a nice little machine. If it was mine, however, I would replace the revolving plastic handles on the cranks with fixed ones made from some polished metal - gives you much more positive feel of what you are doing, when you are cranking. I even would see to replace them with ball-handle cranks.
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The 1864 Composite Ship 'City of Adelaide'
wefalck replied to Jim Lad's topic in Nautical/Naval History
This is another case, where modelling habits and conventions are difficult to eradicate, possible perpetrated by kit-manufacturers as well. The worst thing are raised nail-heads, like rivets. If anything, there should be slight depressions caused by the nails pulling the sheathing into the underlying layer of felt. There are many pictures of real ships with (restored) metal sheathing on the Web now. It is, however, good to see what the contemporary sheathing would have looked like - apart from the colour, which is due to oxidation in the atmosphere. -
I think my great-grandfather and my grand-aunt would have commended you on the leatherwork - they ran a glove-factory (until they had to give in to the Asian competition). Very neat.
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Tools, tools and more tools....
wefalck replied to CPDDET's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
Seems that the Chines make quite reasonable ones at a reasonable price - some of my colleagues have been quite impressed. This offer is from NL, but it originates in China. It bit of searching on ebay should turn up an offer closer to home: https://www.ebay.de/itm/Dental-Labor-Marathon-Micromotor-35K-rpm-Zahntechnik-Straight-Contra-Handstück/121242068474 -
I think the question was what to do with the lines that attach to the sails, if the sails are unbent. Those lines that attach to the lower corners of square sails are often hooked together, forming a sort of triangle in mid-air. Clew-lines have a figure-of-eight knot made into their end and let run up to the block, ready to be re-attached to the cringles in the foot of the sail, when it is bent.
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Can't comment on Baltimore-Clippers, but in general nibs and hooks are cut in a way so as not to get sharp angles. More or less 90° angles are preferred, because they are safer to caulk.
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That's the trouble of working at such a large scale: you can/have to represent all the details, but things are only an eighth of size ... 😏 Good job on the 'leathering' !
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Tools, tools and more tools....
wefalck replied to CPDDET's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
A foot control is a good idea for any power-tool in the workshop. I run all my machines off foot-switches, of the momentary kind, i.e. when you lift the foot, the current is interrupted immediately. Keeps your hands free for the work and if something goes wrong, you just lift your foot from the pedal. As I have it in front of the transformer for hand-held tools, it also saves energy, as the transformer is not running all the time. -
Tools, tools and more tools....
wefalck replied to CPDDET's topic in Modeling tools and Workshop Equipment
Yes, got a couple of those Barraquer needle holders somehow secondhand for a fraction of the price in the ebay-offers. Mine, unfortunately are not lockable, but one can improvise a lock by sliding an oval ring over them. One has to keep an eye open for those chirurgical and particularly ophtalimic surgery instruments. Have also micro-scissors of different sizes from that realm and they come to good use in rigging. -
I love this metal-work, looks like the real cast thing ! One thing that occurred to me: the open end of the shackles looks a bit wide, which results in the shackled being pulled in an oblique direction to the bolt; in real life this could result in the bolt being bent, so that one cannot unshackle it anymore ...
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